“Explore my neck!” grumbled Chet. “Let’s have a fire.”
“How about firewood?” inquired the practical Biff.
This had not occurred to the others. They glanced at one another in dismay.
“That’s right too,” said Joe. “There’s not much wood around these rocks and it’s all wet by now, anyway.”
“Nothing but driftwood,” Frank observed disconsolately. “The rain has drenched it.” He glanced out, and along the shore he spied a few bits of wood tossed up by the waves, but they were sodden and useless.
“This is going to be fine,” said Chet. “We’ll have to shiver here all night without a fire. A great beginning to our visit!”
To tell the truth, the boys were feeling none too cheerful over the prospect, for they were all cold, wet, and hungry and they had been looking forward to dry clothes and a hot meal by a roaring fire. Now it seemed that they were doomed to spend the night in the cheerless shelter of a damp, cold cave, without the vestige of a blaze.
“Thank goodness our blankets are dry, at any rate,” Joe said philosophically.
Frank moved farther back into the cave, with the flashlight illuminating the way. Suddenly he gave an exclamation of mingled astonishment and delight.
“Well! can you beat this, fellows?”
“What have you found?”
“Firewood.”
“Where?”
The others came hastening over to Frank Hardy.
“Look!” Frank cast the beam of the flashlight against the black wall near by.
Full in the center of the circle of radiance, they saw a neat pile of wood. It had not been placed there by accident; that much was certain. It had been stacked carefully by human hands.
Frank stepped over and picked up one of the sticks.
“Good dry driftwood. We don’t have to worry about a fire now.”
“I wonder who on earth piled it in here?” remarked Biff.
Chet shrugged.
“Why worry about that? The main thing is that some thoughtful soul has been kind enough to put it here, and we’re the boys who are going to use it. Where shall we light the fire, Frank?”
“Right here, I guess. This is far enough back from the entrance so that we won’t have to worry about the rain beating in. It’s certainly queer how that wood comes to be here, though.”
“Probably the mysterious chaps who are doing all the yelling and shooting,” said Biff. “We’ll be out of luck if this is their cave we’ve stumbled on.”
“It’s ours now. I don’t see any ‘No Trespassing’ signs.” Frank began carrying wood over to the center of the cave. Then he set down the flashlight, took out his pocketknife, and whittled at a particularly dry stick until he had a small heap of shavings. Carefully stacking a few of the smaller sticks over the shavings and the larger sticks above, crosswise so that there were plenty of air spaces, he took a match from his waterproof case and ignited it, putting it to the shavings. They flared up brightly.
Anxiously, the boys watched the little blaze. The flames caught the small sticks, which snapped and crackled. Then, as the fire rose higher, the heavier wood was ignited, and in a short time the boys had a roaring fire. Never had a campfire been so welcome. Frank had been afraid that lack of a draught in the cave might cause so much smoke that they would be almost smothered, but evidently there was some opening in the roof, some overhead passage that acted in the nature of a chimney, for the smoke was carried off above.
As the warmth of the fire penetrated the cave, the boys took off their drenched clothes and spread them about the blaze, in the meantime wrapping themselves in the heavy blankets they had brought with them. Chet produced the frying pan, and the fragrant odor of sizzling bacon soon permeated their refuge. He improvised a tripod from which was suspended a tin pail, duly filled with rain water that coursed in a gushing stream just beside the mouth of the cave, and in a short time the coffee was boiling.
The boys never enjoyed a meal more than they enjoyed their supper in the cave. The driftwood blazed and crackled, casting a cheerful glow, illuminating the rocky ceiling and walls of the underground chamber. With crisp bacon, bread toasted brown before the fire, hot coffee and jam, they ate ravenously, and at last sat back with deep sighs of sheer content.
“This old cave isn’t so bad after all,” said Chet, wrapping his blanket around him like a cocoon and wriggling his toes toward the flames.
The others glanced toward the entrance of the cavern.
It was pitch dark outside, and still raining. They could hear the constant beat of the downpour, the incessant roar of the surf, the splash of the waves, the moaning of the cold wind out in the blackness of the night, and the cave seemed the most comfortable place in the world.
“We owe a vote of thanks to the chap who stacked this driftwood in here,” said Biff.
“I’ll tell the world!” declared Joe. “We’d have been shivering and hungry yet if it hadn’t been for him.”
“I wonder who he could have been,” mused Frank.
“Perhaps somebody who was down here searching for the smugglers or bootleggers or whoever has been raising all the fuss around here,” his brother suggested.
“He hasn’t shown up yet,” Chet remarked cheerfully. He looked out into the storm and shivered. “Somehow, I have an idea he won’t be along tonight, either,” he added, edging nearer the fire.
“I guess we’d better have a good night’s sleep and then start our exploring tomorrow,” Frank said. “We can start right on this cave, for that matter. It seems to lead back for quite a distance.”
“Sleep sounds good to me.” Biff yawned.
Although part of the floor of the cave was rocky, much of it was sand, which provided a fairly comfortable resting place. The boys were tired after their long journey, so they wrapped themselves up in their blankets and were soon drowsily chatting, while the fire died lower and lower.
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